


Little Girl Found

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Cold Case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-22
Updated: 2005-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lilly must find out who killed a six year old girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Girl Found

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cait N.

 

 

Lilly Rush sipped her coffee as she slammed the car door shut. It didn't matter if it really was the dead of summer. She was a methodical person in every way, and that meant she needed coffee before hitting her first crime scene of the day.

Scotty Valens chuckled lightly as he locked the car. He remembered the second case they worked on together. How he had dragged her out before her morning coffee. How close had he come to becoming the second corpse that day? It probably wasn't a theory he should test.

Rather than goad him into saying anything more, Lilly turned and walked toward the crime scene. The scene was like so many others. Police tape created a barrier around mounds of upturned earth, crime scene investigators, and tools. Random neighbors, journalists, and passers by milled about a few feet away from the police tape. There was a woman on the porch step. She was dressed like anyone who expected to spend the day gardening would look--grubby jeans, a loose chambray shirt, and copious amounts of dirt smudged everywhere. She also looked as if she would be happy to be anywhere but there.

"Ah, Lilly. Scotty." Lilly's boss, John Stillman approached the detectives, careful to not step on any potential evidence. "Her name is Gail Lemke. She plans to move to Santa Fe in two months and was attempting some garden redesign to make the house bring in a bit more when sold. When she dug the hole for the new elm tree, she unearthed the first bones."

"So, why are we here?" Scotty asked. He knew the answer, but couldn't help asking, especially after that one time when he had forgotten to ask the obvious and ended up in a heated moment with a cross-dresser.

John gestured toward the bones. "CSI says the body has been in there since the 1960s. You can bet that investigation went cold decades ago."

Lilly watched the CSI team lift up a child's jaw, broken in two. It looked so small. Too small to have that kind of end. The CSI saw her watching them. "It was broken before she died. And there is evidence of other previous rib and arm breaks," he said.

Too small. She headed back to the car wordlessly. She knew Scotty would follow. They had work to do. Files to go through. A name to find.

\---

Nick Vera looked up from the stack of files on his desk. "Her name was Susan Jones."

Lilly cocked her head and ran the name through her head as Nick read off the rest of Susan's file. "She was six years old; had an older sister, Janet, and a younger brother, Louis. Her father was rather popular around here it seems. From '63 to '68 he spent more time in the drunk tank than at home."

"Which isn't unheard of in abusive families," Scotty added.

"The mother reported Susan went missing in '63, but the trail went cold pretty quickly." Nick closed the file and handed it to Lilly. "It seems the detective in charge thought it was the father, Harvey, but couldn't prove it."

"Is anyone in the family still alive?" Lilly asked as she thumbed through the file.

"Her mom, Sofia, and Louis the younger brother. He actually works for the Department of Human Services down the street. Sofia lives in a retirement village just outside the city."

Scotty grabbed his coat from the back of the chair. "Shall we talk to Sofia first?"

"Yeah," Lilly said as she grabbed her notebook. She wasn't looking forward to informing the woman that her daughter was dead. When a case goes cold for as long as this one had, the families tend to build a mythology around the child. Maybe she was kidnapped, maybe just lost. But they are always sure she has survived and started her own family.

\---

The retirement home looked like all other retirement homes. Furniture was always lumpy and either in a light beige or dusty rose, and normally mismatched. The walls were covered in an off-white paper striped with pastel flowers and vines. Lilly looked around as they waited for the on-call nurse could introduce them to Sofia.

"My abuela lived here for a few years," Scotty mentioned. "She loved the employees. Well, except for the head chef. She was sure he was trying to poison her. Mostly because he wouldn't spice the dishes enough." He chuckled lightly. "Fact is, she burned out most of her taste buds eating chilies."

Lilly smiled, though the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. She probably wouldn't really smile again until they closed this case. She knew there should be more to her life than solving crimes, but nothing ever worked out. Her mind could only focus on one thing at a time, as was evidenced by how she pushed away her sister, Kite, and so many others.

"Sofia is ready to see you now," the nurse said after entering from a closed hallway. "Just take it slow, please. She won't be with us for much longer."

The detectives followed the nurse back through the hall door. This area of the home looked like any hospital. It was for residents nearing the end of their lives.

"Sofia?" The nurse poked her head into room 01-107. "Your visitors are here."

"Hello!" A frail but bright voice came from the bed.

"Hi Mrs. Jones," Lilly said gently.

"Oh, please. It's Sophia."

"Sophia," Lilly amended. "We came to talk to you about your daughter, Susan."

A light seemed to go off behind her eyes. "Susan? You found Susan?"

"Yes ma'am. We found her body yesterday buried in a yard on the other side of town. It looks as if she has been there since 1963," Scotty said gently.

"Oh, that was such a bad time for us." Sophia said, her voice hitching. "Harvey would come home drunk and argumentative. It was all I could do to keep the social workers from taking my darlings away from me."

"How do you think Susan died?" Lilly watched Sophia's face.

"I... I don't know. Harvey could just change his mood so often..."

\---

"Could you repeat what you just said?" Nick asked Louis Jones in his office at DHS.

"Dad drank to ease the pain of living with my mother."

"She was a real firebrand?" Nick's partner Will Jeffries asked.

Louis gave a dry, mocking laugh. "Try harpy." He shook his head as if to free those memories from his mind. "We were never good enough for her. It doesn't really surprise me that you finally found Susie's body. I never did believe any of the stories Mommy Dearest told us."

Nick excused himself and opened his cell phone.

\---

Lilly's phone rang as they stepped out of the retirement home. "Yeah?" She stopped in her tracks. "I see." She looked at Scotty. "Yeah, I know what to do."

"What?" Scotty asked as she hung up.

"We need to talk to Sophia again."

Lilly didn't wait to have a nurse show them to Sophia. She walked straight to her room and knocked on Sophia's door as she opened it. Scotty jogged to catch up before she entered the room.

"It's you again," Sophia brightened up.

"Yeah, Sophia. We just have a few more questions." Lilly sat next to Sophia's bed. "You knew what happened to Susan, didn't you?"

"I knew it had to be something bad."

"Not just bad, but unthinkable," Lilly prodded. "She had been beaten countless times. Her jaw was broken. Her ribs and arms were broken. She must have suffered greatly before she died. I don't know what could have driven a person to kill such a little angel."

Sophia looked as if a war was going on behind her eyes. "I wouldn't call her an angel."

"What?" Scotty asked.

"She was always daddy's little girl," Sophia said. "Sticking up for him when the lazy slob refused to do his share of the housework. Jumping between us that time I threw a pot at him."

"Is that where the breaks came from?" Lilly asked quietly.

"Some of them." Sophia admitted.

"What happened to Susan?"

"That was my one night away from the house. Away from the noise and work. Susan was still upset with me for throwing away her teddy bear because it was falling apart. She snuck into the back of our station wagon and rode along with me. If she had just stayed in the car..."

"But she didn't." Lilly said.

"No, she didn't. She saw me walk up to Carl's house."

"Carl?" Scotty was mesmerized by the story.

"My lover." Sophia shook her head. "Susan jumped out of the car and started screaming at us. I didn't think. I grabbed Susan and covered her mouth with my hand. She struggled, so I held her tightly. Then she stopped moving."

\---

Lilly called her boss. They agreed that there was little they could do to prosecute Sophia. The retirement home didn't expect her to last the week. It seems as if confession was the last thing her body was waiting to do.

On the other end of town, Nick and Will broke the news to Louis.

Lilly and Scotty stepped out into the sunlight. She took a deep, cleansing breath. Susan was lost, but now was found. This was what her life was. It was all about finding closure for others. And she could live with that.

 


End file.
